What female faculty?

It was a pleasure to read the article about Professor Gerald Kadish, who was beloved by students long ago in my graduating class of 1966. I was puzzled, however, by Prof. Kadish’s remembrance of being interviewed for his job in 1963 by Glenn Bartle: “He worried about predatory male faculty; I’m not sure he understood about predatory female faculty.”

A perusal of the faculty photographs in my yearbook reveals not a single female faculty member (not to mention person of color). This was the status quo that the vast majority of (practically all-white) students at Harpur never even noticed or questioned. The presence of women in academia has greatly increased, thanks to the modern women’s movement that was only nascent at the time of my graduation. But let’s not have, of all people, a great history professor distort history with such a remark, when we still have so far to go before true equality is achieved.